FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )This article addresses the questions:*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”*How much would it cost taxpayers?*Who opposes it?”

Last year, the Texas legislature approved a $350 million cut in Medicaid reimbursement rates to early childhood intervention therapists and providers.

The cuts, made to help balance a billion dollars in property tax relief, affect the most vulnerable Texas children — those born extremely prematurely or with Down syndrome or other genetic conditions that put them at risk for developmental delay.

Medicare for All, funded by the federal government, would pay for everything Texas Medicaid — i.e. the citizens of Texas — now pay. No federal taxes would be needed, and Texas’s citizens could save hundreds of millions in taxes.

The problem is the Libertarian belief that federal government should be small. Why should a huge, wealthy nation have a small government? No real reason.

Presumably, they believe a small government is preferable to children’s health.

For months, providers of in-home physical, speech and occupational therapies have continued to serve children who have disabilities, despite mounting financial losses.

Now some have had to shut their doors, curtail services or halt their home-visit programs, leaving many children without treatments their parents feel are crucial to the kids’ well-being.

That’s what’s happened to 2-year-old Haylee Crouse, who lives with her three brothers and sisters in the small town of Whitehouse, in East Texas.

When she was just 8 days old, Haylee contracted newborn meningitis. It left her with some mental and physical deficits, and she started having periodic seizures.

But at the age of 9 months, Haylee started getting home visits and treatments from physical, occupational and speech therapists, several days a week.

“They were a lifesaver to her and to our family,” Amanda Crouse, Haylee’s mother said. “They worked her hard. For example, she was not rolling over. They taught her how to roll over. They then taught her how to crawl, pull up on the couch and then, finally, she learned how to walk.”

The state’s cuts to its Texas Medicaid Acute Care Therapy Programs have meant that the one provider of early childhood intervention treatment in Tyler can no longer do so.

And so, that’s it.

On the 2-year-old’s last day of therapy, Crouse said, “her therapist actually cried. Gave her a hug, said goodbye.

Parents and grandparents of children who have disabilities flocked to Austin in March to implore the state Senate not to do this.

Mothers wept in frustration as they testified before the Texas Senate Finance Committee about the vital these early interventions play in their children’s quality of life.

Republican Sen. Jane Nelson, who heads the Texas Senate’s finance committee, tried to reassure anguished parents that the state would make sure there would be no interruption of services, whatsoever.

“Every eligible child for these services will continue to receive them. And we’re going to monitor it and we’re going to make sure that happens.”

But that’s been a promise the state has not been able to keep, and it’s in the rural parts of Texas where collapse of service has already begun.

This is how they “Make America Great, Again”: Ignore sick children.

“Sometimes you need to talk to some of the parents before you just decide to cut a program,” said Waymon Stewart, the executive director of the Andrews Center in Tyler.

Stewart predicts that children with profound disabilities will suffer most from the closure of his program and others like it, especially in rural regions.

It’s not uncommon for early childhood intervention therapists to have to drive an hour each way to get to far-flung patients. For children who are prone to seizures, or who have to be connected to machines for daily living, long trips in the car several days a week for treatment in other clinics are simply not going to happen, he says.

The cuts made in the state capital took a $312,000 bite out of his center’s budget, forcing him to terminate 20 employees.

“It really hit us hard,” Stewart said. So we were really digging into reserves to try to make this program last, and we did for a year.”

But after that, he said, “we just decided to give our notice. We couldn’t continue to do it unless the rates were changed.”

In Wichita Falls, 235 miles away, the same thing has transpired at the North Texas Rehabilitation Center, which serves 10 North Texas counties.

Mike Castles, the center’s president, said they hung on for a year, but it cost them more than $200,000 in losses. So, after 30 years of service to thousands of North Texas families, that’s it for them too.

“It’s all about money,” he said. “There’s just so much money to make this all work. We tried to for a year; it got worse instead of better with even more bad news coming for this fiscal year.”

The mark of a great nation is not how many atomic bombs it has, or how many billionaires. The mark of a great nation is how it cares for its most vulnerable.

Medicare for all would cost you taxpayers nothing. But the rich, the Tea Partyers and the Libertarians don’t want you to understand that.

They want “small government” so that only the wealthy and powerful can live the American dream. The rest of you: Just keep struggling.

Ten Steps To Prosperity:1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONEFive reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefiting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and corporate taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.